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Letter to Charles Darwin October 11, 1871

Chauncey Wright

To the Same.

CAMBRIDGE, Oct. 11, 1871

I have for some time past been so absorbed in the preparation of a memoir on
the uses and origin of the arrangements of leaves in plants, that almost
every other interest has been put aside ; and I have delayed longer than I
should, to acknowledge the receipt of the pamphlets you were so kind as to send
me. The title-page is much more eye-catching than I anticipated; and altogether
the pamphlet appears in a very taking dress. The printer's art may make up in
part for defects in the style of the essay, which certainly is not of a
pamphleteering sort.

I presented to our Academy last evening my memoir on Phyllotaxy and other
points in the structure of plants,[1]---which
has become a much more elaborate essay than I expected. It is quite as long as
the pamphlet, though the length is partly due to details and considerable
repetitions, by which I have tried to give it a popular character. It was well
received, and will soon be printed, when I will send you copies. The structure
of plants has for a long time seemed to me as likely to afford one of the
easiest, though by no means an absolutely easy, example of the use of the theory
of Natural

(
235) Selection as a working hypothesis ; but I was not well qualified for
working it out. I have not, for example, seen the Essay on Plants by Nageli, to
which you refer, and may not be aware of many of the difficulties of the problem
; but I have not ignored any that I knew, and on points in physiology I have
consulted Professor Gray. I have arrived at very different conclusions from
those of that essay (if I can judge from your reference to it), in respect to
the range of adaptive characters in plants.

With the resources of hypothesis afforded by the mathematical, mechanical,
and physiological principles known to me, I have attempted the explanation of
the special features of Phyllotaxy as present adaptations ; also explanations of
two genetic characters in plants, the general spiral and the whorl arrangements,
as past adaptations ; and have proposed to reduce the distinction of adaptive
and genetic characters in general to a merely relative one. Regarding the latter
as inherited features of past and outgrown adaptations, and conjecturing what
some of these could have been, I have built an hypothesis across the chasm
between the higher plants and sea-weeds. This sounds venturesome and paradoxical
enough, much more so, I hope, than it will appear in the essay, where I feel the
way along with at least some appearance of caution. . . .

On October 23, Mr. Darwin wrote: "It pleases me that you are satisfied with
the appearance of your pamphlet. I am sure that it will do our cause good
service ; and this same opinion Huxley has expressed to me. . . . Your letter
arrived just one day after the return of my two sons from America. They enjoyed
their tour exceedingly, and, I think, Cambridge more than all the rest. I am
sure I feel grateful for the extraordinary kindness with which they were
treated."

And again, on April 6, 11872, he acknowledges the receipt

(
236) of the paper on Phyllotaxis: "I have read your paper with great
interest, both the philosophical and special parts. I have not been able to
understand all the mathematical reasoning; for irrational angles produce a
corresponding effect on my mind. Nevertheless, I have been able to follow the
general arguments ; and I am delighted to have a cloud of darkness largely
removed. It is a great thing to be able to assign reasons why certain angles do
not occur, or occur rarely. I have felt the difficulty of the case for some
dozen years. Your memoir must have been a laborious undertaking; and I
congratulate you on its completion. The illustration taken from leaves of
genetic and adaptive characters seems to me excellent, as indeed are many points
in your paper. . . . I sent you some time ago a copy of my new edition of the `
Origin,' which 1 hope you have received."

Notes

The Uses and Origin of the Arrangements of Leaves in Plants: Philosophical
Discussions, p. 296.

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